LA 2028 chairman Casey Wasserman, a prominent UCLA donor, figures to have some influence over whom the school hires to replace dismissed football coach Jim Mora. (Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

LOS ANGELES — Casey Wasserman shelled out a reported $20 million to build UCLA a new football facility and the school’s deep-pocketed donor will now have a hand in deciding who gets to work in the building that bears his name.

Wasserman, along with Athletic Director Dan Guerrero, senior associate athletic director Josh Rebholz, and former UCLA quarterback Troy Aikman, is leading UCLA’s search for a new head coach after the school fired Jim Mora on Sunday. The high-powered quartet got to work quickly, chasing former Oregon coach Chip Kelly.

The same day Guerrero fired Mora, the athletic director searching for his fourth football head coach was meeting with Kelly’s agent, Bruin Report Online reported. The twice-fired NFL coach turned TV analyst is also considering an offer from Florida, the Associated Press reported, as officials from Gainesville met with Kelly on Sunday, hours after UCLA dismissed Mora.

The news shocked players when they returned to campus one day after a hard-fought loss to USC. It was UCLA’s third straight loss in the crosstown rivalry after three straight wins at the beginning of the Mora era seemingly started to the gap between the two schools.

Yet with a new $75 million football-specific building and a record-setting apparel deal, the program likely felt it needed to act quickly to make a run at a flashy coaching name to go with its flashy new facility. It could not wait for Mora to push the Bruins into a low-tier bowl game, despite the distress the news caused players while they prepare for a regular-season finale on a short week with bowl eligibility on the line.

So UCLA acted swiftly. Mora stepped off the media podium at the Coliseum at about 9:30 Saturday night. The team had a meeting at 11 a.m. Sunday. Mora walked in at 11:03. Two minutes later, the school officially announced the news in a press release. In the statement, Wasserman and Aikman were already lined up as part of the search committee.

Aikman, who made a $1 million donation to put his name on the strength and conditioning facility in the Wasserman Football Center, is UCLA’s most high-profile football alumnus. Wasserman helped bring the Olympics to Los Angeles and don’t be surprised if he helps the university pay Mora’s $12 million buyout. UCLA announced the fee would be covered by department-generated funds after Mora made $3.57 million last year.

The football facility Aikman and Wasserman helped fund will be the lasting mark of Mora’s legacy in Westwood. The school struggled to carve out funding and space for it, but Mora had a clause in his 2014 contract extension waiving all buyouts if UCLA had not started construction on the facility by Oct. 1, 2015.

While building Wasserman Football Center, UCLA representatives toured several other facilities across the country, including Oregon’s. The floor of the lobby in UCLA’s facility includes the names of every UCLA football player going back to the school’s first team in 1919. It’s an idea the Bruins borrowed from the Ducks.

Oregon’s facility opened one season after Kelly left Eugene, but it was built on the dime of Nike founder Phil Knight, whose flashy style fit that of Kelly’s up-tempo offense. The pairing vaulted Oregon toward the top of college football with a recognizable brand.

Wasserman, who has donated millions of dollars to UCLA, could be looking for a figurehead to establish and represent a similar brand for the Bruins.

Thuc Nhi Nguyen has covered UCLA for the Southern California News Group since 2016. A proud Seattle native, she majored in journalism and mathematics at the University of Washington. She likes graphs, animated GIFs and superheroes.

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